Theismann and Mike Patrick have earned a lot of free pizza

Thanks to getting some NBC air time from Joe Theismann and Mike Patrick during the Redskins-Ravens preseason game the founder of Papa John's has found his long lost muscle car.

And Jeff Robinson of Flatwoods, Ky., is $250,000 richer for selling back the 1971 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 car he bought for $4,500 in 2004 to pizza mogul John Schnatter. (Photo by Papa John's/AP)

Schnatter paid $1,600 for the car when he was 15, and sold it for $2,800 in 1983, when he was 21. It was sold one more time before Robinson acquired it.

Schnatter explained to WLKY in Louisville why his once-struggling family's finances made him let his beloved muscle car go.

"We sold the car to save (his father's Indiana) bar. Dad was in bankruptcy. I didn't sell the car to start Papa John's. I wasn't that smart . . . But I had to sell the car otherwise we wouldn't have fixed the bar. Of course the bar is where we started selling pizzas."

He added that Theismann and Patrick "were kind enough to let me talk about the car for about three or four minutes," which was heard by a friend of Robinson's.

It also no doubt helped that NFL preseason games are deadly boring, and that Schnatter's tale was probably more interesting than anything taking place on the field.

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About Reid and Mike

Reid Cherner has been with USA TODAY since 1982 and written Game On! since March 2008.

He has covered everything from high schools to horse racing to the college and the pros. The only thing he likes more than his own voice is the sound of readers telling him when he's right and wrong.

Michael Hiestand has covered sports media and marketing for USA TODAY, tackling the sports biz ranging from what's behind mega-events such as the Olympics and Super Bowl to the sometimes-hidden numbers behind the sports world's bottom line.